summary 365 metimes also in situations in which case law came into conflict with statutory law. Throughout, the 17th century, Swedish lawyers were highly active in borrowing new ideas and new legal concepts from abroad which they used in their legal arguments. This was, inter alia, a result of Swedish participation in wars on the European continent, of study trips (peregrinations) in Europe undertaken by Swedish students and also of the fact that foreign professors became increasingly common at Swedish universities. Ius commune had an immense influence on both legal developments and attitudes to the sources of lawduring this period, and at the same time the lawyers (both counsel to the parties and the judges) became professional to an extent previously unknown. The role of counsel changed, and the freedom of counsel to steer proceedings grew. After having developed for centuries under the influence of Roman law, canon law and medieval laws, the will in the 17th century, became largely a civil law institution. Most western European countries experienced a similar development. During the second half of the 17th century, the will became a legal strategy used primarily to protect and distribute private property. Some wills were death-bed wills, but the large majority of wills were drawn up well in advance of the death of the testator. The further into the 17th century one progresses, the longer is the time span between the signing of the will and the death of the testator. My study of cases of disputed wills shows that on average there was a three-year period between the making of a will and the death of the testator. The will provided an opportunity for modifying the rules governing the rights of inheritance without the necessity for changing the law. By referring to the ideas of equity and fairness derived from natural law and by stressing the principle of the freedom of contract, the rules governing the rights of inheritance could be circumvented. In a will, testators were able to dispose of their property in accordance with their own wishes. Two types of testamentary dispositions can be indentified: partly wills where the testator had direct heirs and wished to either favour or discriminate against one or several of the children, and partly cases where the testator was childless and willed his/her property to the his/her widow/widower through a joint will. With regard to testamentary dispositions and the distribution of the estate in wills, my study shows no noticeable difference between wills made by men and those made by women. In the cases studied, the testators had similar reasons for making a will, i.e. it gave
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